


In Memory

by Camellianswer



Category: Rockman X | Mega Man X
Genre: Coping, DIE LUMINE, Gen, Grief, Loss, Post-X8, Reploid, Robot, Robots, hahahaha, lumine is dead, reploids, this is after x gets himself together and treats axl right, who knows what is happening, x is just being kinda depressed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 21:11:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20453627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camellianswer/pseuds/Camellianswer
Summary: X, with some lobbying, has managed to get a plaque created in the park commemorating his young friend and the many others who helped bring the latest war to a close. That winter, having difficulty dealing with the loss of his friend, he visits the plaque and reminisces…





	In Memory

A man with short, scruffy hair and a thick scarf ambled up, his feet crunching in the fresh snow that would soon cease being beautiful. X heard him approach – had heard him coming all the way from the other end of the park – but didn’t move at all.

The man’s breath sighed out as he read the plaque. “Decommissioned, huh?”

When X didn’t respond, the man sighed again and thrust his hands into his pockets. With all that sighing, the air around him was filled with white puffs of frozen breath. “Rough. That’s really rough. He didn’t deserve that. Just tryin’ to help us, that was all.”

X managed a nod.

“You a friend of his?”

“Yes. Are you?”

“You might say that.” The man smiled wistfully. X slowly took in little details. Light stubble on the cheeks. Red-tipped ears. A tattoo on the neck, mostly obscured by the knit scarf. Gray-blue eyes. You notice things, little things, on a day like this, X reflected.

Little things to block out the big ones.

The man continued his speech. “Yeah, we met, he got me out of a jam. Saw him around every now and then after that. Bought him a drink once. Really rough what they did to him, to all those guys. It isn’t right.”

X nodded again. It seemed easiest.

“Good guys like him never really die, though. You notice that? That kind of personality, it just stays.” Another sigh, another billow of white air. “I tell you, he might be gone, but he’ll always be beside you.”

Once upon a time he might have appreciated a trite comment like that, but this time he just felt empty.

“Yeah…he’ll never really be gone. Can’t keep a guy like him down.” X noticed that the man was close, uncomfortably close, and he started to turn away when a familiar voice caught his ear.

“I’m just saying….it’s like I’m still here, huh X?”

He whirled to face the stranger. “What--?!”

The man stood as he had before, gazing up at the plaque, but now he had a mischievous grin playing around his lips as he looked sideways at X. The snowflakes slowed and stopped as X noted the little details again. Lime-green eyes. The smudges of an old scar on the bridge of the nose. That memorable quirk of the eyebrows…

“A…Axl?”

Time restarted, and the man wasn’t looking at him anymore, and X was left standing there on the verge of overload, feeling as if he’d just awoken from a vivid dream. Were the stranger’s eyes ever green? Was that all just a hallucination?

“So don’t worry about it too much. It’ll be okay in the end.” His voice went back to what it was before as he rubbed his hands around in the pockets, rustling and trying to stay warm. “See you around, pal.”

For a few minutes, X moved as little as the statue adorning the center of the park. When he could act again, snow had piled on his shoulders, his head, and burned coldly. That didn’t matter. He barely felt it.

“Was it…him?”

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a very, very short idea I had a while ago.


End file.
